The use of intravascular medical devices has become an effective method for treating many types of vascular disease. In general, one or more suitable intravascular devices are inserted into the vascular system of the patient and navigated through the vasculature to a desired target site. Using this method, virtually any target site in the patient's vascular system may be accessed, including the coronary, cerebral, and peripheral vasculature. Examples of therapeutic purposes for intravascular devices include percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) and percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA).
When in use, intravascular devices, such as a catheter, may enter the patient's vasculature at a convenient location and then can be advanced over a guidewire to a target region in the anatomy. The path taken within the anatomy of a patient may be very tortuous, and as such, it may be desirable to combine a number of performance features in the intravascular device to aid in advancing the catheter over the guidewire. For example, it is sometimes desirable that the catheter have a relatively high level of pushability and torqueability. It is also sometimes desirable that a catheter be relatively flexible, for example, to aid in advancing the catheter over the guidewire to access a treatment site. In addition, for some applications, catheters may also be expected to exhibit tensile and/or compressive strength in certain regions.
A number of different elongated medical device structures, assemblies, and methods are known, each having certain advantages and disadvantages. However, there is an ongoing need to provide alternative elongated medical device structures, assemblies, and methods. In particular, there is an ongoing need to provide alternative medical devices including structure or assemblies configured to aid in advancing a catheter over a guidewire in a vessel of a patient, and methods of making and using such structures and/or assemblies.